Mutually Assured Equilibrium
by Posthumous Immortality
Summary: A deadly power struggle between the two most powerful families in the city comes to a head. "It's not personal. We just needed a trading piece, and chance chose you." Alternate Universe.
1. Chapter 1

When Leo turned seven years old, his father told him that he could have whatever he wanted for his birthday.

"I can get you anything at all, boy. Just name it, and it will be yours."

That year, and for every year after, Leo requested books on the topic that had caught his interest that particular week. It wasn't until he was much older that he realized that his father had not been exaggerating as much as his then seven year old self had thought. The Krakenburg family, as he found out, was by far the most influential crime family in the city. It wasn't wrong to categorize some of their ventures as illegal, but more often than not, the truly dirty work was left to a platoon of smaller, less morally sound gangs that the patriarch of the family, Garon, oversaw.

On virtually every front, the Krakenburgs were unassailable. They could be charming and slick one moment, and ruthless and violent in the next. Any attempts to convict the key members of the family failed miserably, as previously declared testimonies were retracted, and evidence failed to appear. The only thing that kept them in line, and even still just barely, was the Shirasagi family.

A rare strain of a normally manageable hereditary blood disease ran through the veins of the Krakenburgs. Left untreated, it would lead to accelerated physical and mental decline, and an early death to those who suffered from it. Leo was considered fortunate in that he was merely a carrier, but his father, brother, and younger sister were all afflicted with it. The only known method to stave off deterioration indefinitely was a medication, taken weekly, produced by one company: The Shirasagi Pharmaceutical Company.

The Shirasagis held a monopoly on the product, that, without a doubt, could only exist because of extensive bribes for government officials on every level. If such a scandal was revealed, it would destroy the company's value and lead to years of jail time for its CEO, Sumeragi. Of course, legitimate proof of this corruption was also difficult to come by, and the only evidence that lay outside the control of the Shirasagis was a series of letters that lay in Krakenburg hands.

It was a volatile relationship between the two factions. Unable to be tried in court, the Krakenburg family's only vulnerability lay in their reliance on the Shirasagi Pharmaceutical Company to keep them alive and sane. Meanwhile, the only thing that could bring down the company was in the possession of the Krakenburgs. If either side broke their end of the unspoken deal, it would only assure their own destruction.

But the status quo would not hold forever.

"We are about to lose our only advantage, Leo."

The second son of Garon Krakenburg glanced up at his older brother, who had appeared without warning in the doorway of his bedroom. "Pardon me, Xander?"

"The new chief prosecutor. The letters that we hold will soon be useless if an investigation is called into the Shirasagis."

"Damn their influence," Leo cursed softly. The city's retiring prosecuting attorney was old-fashioned and short-tempered, but he was also stubborn and honourable. Incorruptible, as his father had found out decades before. "Do we have any way to blackmail the new prosecutor? He can't be completely clean."

"She. And no, she's untouchable. She's ex-military, as were her parents, but both are dead. No immediate family to be found. And even if the Shirasagis hadn't talked to her, she still hates us with a passion."

"I refuse to stay idle and watch you die, brother. There has to be something we can exploit. Something we can trade. There's always a way out. Tell me what you're thinking."

Xander suddenly seemed uncharacteristically apprehensive, his normally confident exterior visibly wavering. "Well, Father has an idea. But you're not going to like it in the slightest."

* * *

"You must be joking, Father. That's not a long-term solution! It might work now, but eventually the Shirasagis will get their act together. They aren't that incompetent. Can't we parley with them, appeal to their consciences? Anything else, before we resort to this?"

"Do not question my decision, Leonardo," Garon hissed, his voice layered with deadly venom. "I am still the leader of this family, and you will do as I say. Find a hostage, anyone of value to the damn Shirasagis, and use them to negotiate an exchange. Is that clear?"

Leo grimaced, frustrated. His father's plan was only a temporary fix. Even if they could kidnap a Shirasagi and traded them for a cache of medication, the end result would be the same as their current situation: A dwindling supply with no leverage left. "Yes, Father."

"Iago will assist you. Your role is one of strategy, not execution, but I expect you to secure a place for our prisoner to be detained, and to assist your brother in the negotiations. Prove yourself to me, boy."

In the end, Leo played no part of the actual kidnapping at all. His father's oily right-hand man simply brushed him aside, and with the minimal level of respect, told him to find a location to house their "guest." A disused warehouse on a quiet backstreet, straddling the city limits, was acquired without issue.

It was a few minutes past six in the evening when Iago's equally slimy lackey, Hans, pulled open the corrugated metal bay door. He was pulling a slender girl by the arm, a burlap sack over their head. She whimpered slightly as he yanked her towards a folding chair, and tied her wrists together behind its back.

"Shut up, girlie." He inclined his head towards Leo. "She's all yours."

"Hans. You didn't kill anyone or cause unnecessary injury today, correct?" Hans should have been convicted murderer, but thanks to meddling from Garon, he had been spared a sentence due to "technicalities." He was the Krakenburg's go-to man for illicit activities that required force.

"No… sir. No hitches at all."

"Excellent. I'll put in a good word for you. Now get out of here."

Only after Hans had stumbled out of the warehouse, gingerly touching his nose and grumbling about moody teenagers, did Leo take his first close look at his captive. He swiftly pulled the bag off her head, revealing a curtain of shoulder-length pink hair framing the face of a girl not much older than Elise. A handkerchief was tied around her mouth. Her maroon eyes, wide and blinking rapidly from the sudden reintroduction of light, flicked around the mostly empty room, and then focused on him.

She stared at him imploringly, and with a sigh, Leo undid the cloth covering her mouth.

"Wh-who are you?" she sputtered softly. "Wh-why are you doing this?"

"Your family has something that mine needs desperately." Leo pursed his lips uncomfortably. He regretted even allowing her to talk in the first place. It only poked at his conscience more when the victims of his family's actions weren't just faceless shadows. "This… won't make you feel any better, but it's not personal. We just needed a trading piece, and chance chose you."

"What do you want?" she persisted. "A ransom? What in the world forced you to go so such lengths for m-money?

"What forced us to go to such lengths for... money?" Leo repeated slowly, staring at her in disbelief. "Are… are you serious? Or just naïve little girl who has no clue how the world works?"

She seemed cowed by his sudden change in tone. "I-I don't understand…"

"This isn't about money. This is about life and death! My sister, my brother, and my father will die because the corrupt Shirasagi Pharmaceutical Company places its stock value over the human lives. Your family is the only producer of a drug that keeps Father from going senile at fifty, Xander out of a mental institution, and Elise out of a wheelchair! And now their access to it is being deliberately cut off, putting their lives in jeopardy because every member of the judiciary system from the lowliest bailiff to the prosecuting attorney is in the pocket of the Shirasagis!" Leo paused, breathless from his fervent rant. "How do you not understand the consequences of your family's actions? They are going to, quite ironically, kill people!"

"You're… you're lying! You h-have to be lying. That can't be… what happens. They h-help people, not kill them!" Her voice cracked as she stuttered weakly in protest.

"How much," Leo challenged, continuing to glare at her, "do you actually know about your family's business? How much have you been told about what they do, what they make? Their money, their clients?"

She was silent, not meeting his eyes.

"Well? Do you have an answer?"

She answered with a whisper, barely audible even in the deserted warehouse. "I kn-know almost n-nothing. But Father wouldn't… R-Ryoma wouldn't… be so cold-hearted..."

"They aren't the saints you thought they were, right? I know that feeling all too well."

* * *

 **(End of Chapter One)**

" **I'm going to write a collection of five short stories before school starts."**

" **Four."**

" **Two, and they'll be pretty weird and not at all romantic."**

" **I just found a huge inconsistency in one, so I'm just going to focus on the other."**

" **I could publish the first chapter before school, but I don't want to because it's all hot garbage at the moment."**

" **It's still hot garbage. I've changed three words in the past week."**

 **Maybe I'll retcon some stuff later.**


	2. Chapter 2

There was a nervous tension in the air when Sakura wandered into the breakfast room one morning.

"Good morning, everyone." Ryoma was pacing distractedly, while Takumi scowled at his food. Hinoka was nowhere to be found. "Has big sister already left? I thought she was driving Takumi and me to school today."

Ryoma halted immediately, glancing up at Sakura. "She needed to blow off some steam. I will be taking you today."

"Did you two have another disagreement? Please don't fight again…"

The other person in the room piped up. "No, it's just that Father's being a—"

"Takumi," Ryoma said sharply. "Watch your mouth." He directed the rest of his words towards his youngest sister. "She's stressed about something, that's all."

"Is it about a business deal?"

Ryoma hesitated, looking away from her. "Well, of sorts. But it's nothing that you need to worry about, Sakura."

The morning's conversation had already left her mind by the afternoon. She was walking home alone after orchestra practice. Takumi had insisted on staying behind for extra archery practice with the rest of his team, and although Sakura did have band friends, none of them lived in the same neighbourhood.

The street was quiet, devoid of people. Only a few cars passed her on her journey, mostly expensive sports cars or sedans. A white van, its front bumper spotted with rust, slowed as it approached her from the opposite side of the street. She felt a trickle of apprehension running down her spine, and stopped dead in her tracks, trying to resist the rapidly growing urge to sprint in the other direction.

It was like a cliché scene from some cheap, trashy horror novel, but the reality of the situation was hitting Sakura in the face and stunning her. In the end, it was her hesitation that damned her.

A brutish man, narrow-faced with his hair shaven close to the scalp, stepped out of the van's passenger side. He stomped towards her, footsteps thumping on the concrete sidewalk. "I've been told to keep this clean. No excessive violence, no mess, nothing," he called to her. "Would you mind helping me with that?"

Finally her brain kicked into gear, and she ran from him, wanting to scream for help, but only loud, panicky wheezing came out of her mouth. She made three strides before he grabbed her from behind, pinning her arms to her side. Her bag, a pink messenger, dropped to the ground.

"C'mon kid, I don't want to—" Sakura, struggling to break his grasp, rocked her elbow backwards and heard a cracking noise. A second later, a spatter of dark red blood fell on her sleeve. The man let out a cry of pain. "You little shit!"

One of his hands reached for his hip, and a switchblade, glinting as though just polished, appeared in front of Sakura's eyes. Shining, serrated, and deadly. It was transfixing. Scary. She froze, with quivering breath.

"Don't make me use this. I will if I have to, whatever that smug brat says be damned!"

Sakura slumped, defeated. The man pulled her away to the van, placing a rough cloth sack over her head and a handkerchief over her mouth. She felt her cheeks wetten, as she curled up against the inside wall of the vehicle in darkness.

* * *

The feeling of her binds being loosened caused Sakura to stir— not from sleep, but from a cold, mute, catatonia-like state. Her mind was whirling. One half of her wanted to deny everything that the blond boy had told her. After all, why should she believe the motivations of people who had kidnapped her? And yet, he didn't seem like a liar. His anger towards her appeared to be driven by a belief it was his only option, and not true malice. Perhaps he was misguided, told falsehoods by someone else, or maybe she was the ignorant one. She couldn't tell.

"Wake up," came a disinterested voice, as a hand shook Sakura's shoulder repeatedly. The blond boy shoved a brown paper bag onto her lap. "Here. Eat this." He walked away before she responded, and sat on stool in the opposite end of the room, while opening a book that had been resting on the ground.

Sakura inspected its contents with caution. There was a sandwich wrapped in plastic film, made with white bread, cold deli meat, and an abnormal amount of tomato. An unopened bottle of water rested beside it, as did a folded scrap of paper, which she extracted first and unfurled. The cursive handwriting and purple ink gave the impression of a female writer.

 _Leo,_

 _I know that you're upset with Father, but please_

 _don't take your anger out on our guest._

 _I'll drop by tonight so you can sleep for_

 _a few hours, but I won't be happy if I hear_

 _that my sweet little brother was being a grouch._

 _Love, Cam_

The note clearly wasn't addressed to her, but rather to the boy— Leo? If he knew that such a heartfelt note was left in the bag he gave her, he was unfazed. And didn't it mean that she was eating food intended for him?

"U-um," she called, voice quavering slightly. "Is-isn't this supposed yours?"

"I can live without eating for awhile. That idiot Hans didn't procure food like I told him to," he replied, not looking up.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, Sakura nibbling on the sandwich and taking small sips of water, and Leo turning a page in his book at regular intervals. It was impossible for her to know the time without her cellphone or a view outside, but a sudden yawn, unable to be stifled, made it apparent to her that it was night.

"There are some blankets in the corner if you'd like to sleep," Leo said, glancing up at the sound. "Obviously you're going to be here for some time, so you should make yourself comfortable."

"W-wait, but aren't—"

"There is a bathroom available as well. No one considers the issue of the bladder during kidnappings."

"A-aren't you going to tie me up again?"

He blinked at her. "Would you prefer to spend your time bound to the chair? I… suppose I can do that, but I don't see why you would want that."

"But a-aren't you worried that I'll run away?" Sakura blurted, without thinking. She berated herself internally. If he wasn't suspicious of her before, he certainly would be now.

"There is only one exit from this warehouse that you can access without a key, the loading bay doors, and I am always in sight of them. Perhaps you could wait for me to be distracted, or to fall asleep, but then you would be in the middle of a crime-ridden industrial zone in the dead of night. If anything, you are safer in here than outside."

With that declaration, he returned to his book. Sakura looked down at her food. More than half of the sandwich remained, but her stomach was unsettled. She folded the film back over itself and dropped the package into the bag. Her eyelids began to droop, and she stood unsteadily to look for the aforementioned blankets with hazy vision. They were ratty and thin, chafing against her sore wrists, but more comfortable than the concrete floor by a large margin.

She drifted off into a troubled sleep.

* * *

 **(End of Chapter Two)**

 **Dialogue problems. Character accuracy problems. Chapter length. Deadline Quality, apparently.**


	3. Chapter 3

**It's not too late to hit that back button.**

* * *

"This is her? She's so cute! Hans better not have hurt her…"

Voices wafted into Sakura's head, shattering her hopes of sleeping for a just a little bit longer. All three of her siblings were early risers, but she could never force herself to leave the warm embrace of her bed until she absolutely had to, even if it meant that she had to rush through her morning routine.

"If anything, she injured him. When Hans left, he was rubbing his nose, and there's some dried blood on her sleeve."

These particular voices didn't sound like Ryoma, Hinoka, or Takumi, though. She opened her eyes warily, and saw an older girl, with waist-length lilac hair that tickled Sakura's face, kneeling next to her.

"Did all of our chatter wake you up, sweetheart?" she asked. "I'm so sorry for disturbing you in the middle of the night. I know that this must be a very trying experience, but I'll try to make it as pleasant for you as I can, okay? My name is Camilla Krakenburg. What's yours?"

"It's S-Sakura. Sakura Shirasagi." The younger girl hesitated, pushing herself into a sitting position. Something had been bothering her about Leo's, and now Camilla's, attitude to her. "I-If I may ask… why are you being so kind to me? You kidnapped me, there's no need for you to make an effort, r-right?

"It's not as though I'm not gr-grateful or anything! Of course, I d-don't like being taken away from my f-family, but I suppose it isn't as b-bad as it could be," she continued hastily, words tumbling out of her mouth. "I'm just confused."

"Well, we may be enemies, but that doesn't mean we can't be polite," Camilla replied, winking at her. "Besides, if I knew how adorable you were, I would have argued with Father even more than Leo did!"

The blond rolled his eyes at his sister. "You're so shallow, Camilla."

"And you're so mean to your big sis!" She clapped her hands together. "Leo and I have to head home for the night, before he gets too grumpy. I'm afraid that I'll have to lock you in here, sweetie. It's less about you going anywhere, and more about keeping unwanted visitors out. Homeless people, burglars, drug addicts, rabble like that. If you get hungry, there's some food and water for you in this bag—" She set a small tote bag beside the mound of blankets. "—and I'll bring you breakfast tomorrow, okay? Just sit tight."

She leaned in towards Sakura, whispering directly into her ear. "I've also left some hygiene products for you to use in the bathroom, but don't tell my brother. He gets terribly embarrassed when I bring them up."

That night, after the Krakenburg siblings had driven off and left her alone, Sakura seriously considered running away. Even though the proper exits were locked from the inside, as Camilla had said, she could still open the large metal warehouse doors, designed for loading trucks, without a key. Perhaps there was even a window that she could jump out of. But Leo's words echoed in her head.

 _"If anything, you are safer in here than outside."_

She didn't know where she was, nor did she have her cell phone, ID, or any money. To try and escape would be a risk.

Sakura stayed put.

* * *

She awoke under the fluorescent lights to a throbbing headache, and a parched throat. In her sleep, Sakura had turned onto her side, pinching her arm underneath her. Gingerly, she sat up and rubbed her shoulder, feeling the rest of her arm tingle as blood began to flow correctly again.

"Water?" A clear plastic bottle appeared in front of her clouded eyes. Sakura squinted into the bright overhead lights, reaching for it. She uncapped it with numb fingers and hastily gulped down half of its contents. Some of it spilled on the front of her blouse, dotting the white cotton with dark spots.

"Camilla had to leave for her classes, but she left behind muffins and a change of clothing for you." Leo was sitting next to her on his stool, perusing another book. "It's no substitute for a proper shower, but clean clothes will make you feel better."

Her vision still a little foggy, Sakura scooped up the garments and shuffled into the bathroom, the door clicking shut. The t-shirt, pastel pink and adorned with a picture of a cat, and the accompanying flower print jeans were more flamboyant than her normal cardigan, blouse, and skirt, but they fit her comfortably. She placed the clothing she had just shed in a neat pile by the door.

A cardboard box of baked goods was waiting for her upon her return. They were still slightly warm to the touch as she plucked one from the carton and sat down cross-legged on the blankets.

"Where d-did the clothing come from? You didn't buy them new, did you?"

Leo waved his hand dismissively. "They belonged to my younger sister. Xander and Camilla spoil her to no end though, so I doubt she'll miss them."

"Did you say her name was E-Elise?"

"Mhm. I think she's about your age." Leo looked at her contemplatively. Initially, his eyes were on her, but they soon lost their focus and began to stare at something beyond her, that she couldn't see. "If it weren't for our families, perhaps you two would be friends. She insists on going to a public high school, even though she spends two weeks of every month in the hospital. Frankly, I don't see the point, but Father lets her do what she wants. He could barely care less about her."

"Maybe she just wants to do something n-normal," Sakura suggested quietly. "I'm sure that it's difficult enough to make friends her age when she's at school, so if she was homeschooled…"

"She would have even less opportunity to do so," Leo conceded, nodding his head slowly. "You're right. I'm afraid that I'm not much of a social butterfly, so I didn't think about it in that way."

"I-If you don't mind m-me asking, don't you have school or work to go to as well?"

He shook his head. "I chose to be homeschooled. My tutors won't be upset if I miss a day."

"Don't you have other things to do besides guarding me all the time? Surely s-someone else could be doing this."

"Hans is a violent brute, and Iago is a rat. There are very few people that I can trust, and they are all far busier than I am. If my company is so unpleasant, I apologize."

Sakura's face reddened slightly. "No… I just think that your time could be used for doing s-something else, instead of wasting it by staying here. Takumi, Hinoka, they would never be able to sit still for so long."

"Takumi… and Hinoka? Are they…?"

"M-my siblings… They… they must be so upset with me… and themselves." In truth, she hadn't put much thought into how her family was coping with her disappearance. It was only when she unwittingly mentioned their names that it hit her. "Hinoka probably isn't sleeping. Takumi might try to skip school, and only Ryoma will have the energy to stop him from doing that." Sakura's eyes began to water, and the warehouse's other occupant took notice. He averted his gaze, scowling down at the book in his lap, clearly uncomfortable. He seemed to be arguing with himself, his facial expression changing between guilt and grim, stony determination.

"I'm sure that they are working as fast as they can to meet our ransom demand," Leo finally said. "I hope that you can go home soon."

"Could you tell me… why?" Sakura whispered after tense pause. "What changed, that forced you to do this? You never told me exactly what happened between our families."

"Well, there's no harm, I guess. We had a series of letters—" Leo corrected himself, sighing. "Still have a series of now useless letters proving that your family had spent millions in bribes for leading politicians and judges, keeping their monopoly on an important drug intact and the list of medicinal ingredients secret. By now, the patent should have expired, allowing others to produce generic versions, and forcing your family to release all information on it.

"The city's new prosecuting attorney both despises my family, and is on your family's payroll. Even though our evidence should be damning, it would be thrown out immediately if we tried to use it. Now we have no leverage, and your family made the deliberate choice to cut us off. To take out a potential future rival, even though, to my knowledge, it has been years been since Father dabbled in drug trafficking. But we had to do something in response, and this… was the only option my Father would accept."

* * *

 **(End of Chapter Three)**

 **Burn it all.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Completed (a week late) for the sake of closure, not because I'm proud of this monstrosity. Just pretend that it never happened.**

* * *

Leo tried to resist the urge to slam his fist into the nearest wall. He failed, his knuckles making a thud as they smacked the drywall.

"Damn him. Vandalism and assault. How is it possible that Hans could be so careless?"

His uncharacteristic show of anger drew a concerned look from Xander. It was Leo's second night at home since Sakura had been unceremoniously deposited at the deserted warehouse, and into his supervision. He was having a late dinner alone with his brother, a rare occurrence given how infrequently their schedules lined up.

"He was drunk, as I'm sure you've guessed by now. It will be difficult to get the charges dropped, but we must do it. If we cut him off, Hans may choose to take his chances and testify against us for a reduced sentence."

"Yes, yes, of course. I'll put some thought into it tomorrow." Leo pushed back his plate, his food having only been picked at. The Krakenburg family employed a small collection of staff, all of them paid to tune out any words that weren't directed specifically at them. Although his dinner had been prepared by a professional, he suddenly had a craving for one of Camilla's sandwiches.

"Leo?" Xander inquired cautiously, his expression similar to that of one about to poke a sleeping bear. "You seem… a little off. If there is something bothering you, please, speak up. I am listening, even if you don't believe that I am."

I'm so sick of this, is what Leo wanted to say. I want to stop all of this madness, even though I know I can't. For so many reasons.

But he couldn't form the words in his mouth. Instead, he said what was perhaps the most blatant lie in his life. "I'm fine, Brother. Now then, how are negotiations with the Shirasagis going?"

Xander accepted his change of subject without question. "I believe that we will have something worked out by tomorrow. It doesn't feel as though I am dealing with the Shirasagi patriarch. Their correspondence reeks of desperation."

"It's her brother, then."

"Her br—" Xander nodded in understanding. "Of course. That would explain it why they want her back as fast as possible. I assume this mean that you have been talking with our… guest?"

Once again, the word 'prisoner' or 'captive' or 'hostage' was carefully avoided. "Yes," Leo answered in a measured tone. "Only a little bit."

It wasn't a complete lie, with how two of his conversations with Sakura had ended with her in tears, and a silence that stretched on for hours.

"Don't get too attached," Xander warned him. "For your sake as much as the rest of ours."

"I won't." Leo slid his chair back, stood up, and walked away.

* * *

"Wh-what's wrong?" Sakura asked him.

Leo couldn't bring himself to respond. He thought back to the previous night, and Xander questioning him about the same thing.

"W-would you like to talk?"

Silence returned for a brief moment.

"You don't want to hear me rant about my responsibilities as a Krakenberg," Leo finally said.

"I can listen."

When he hesitated again, Sakura pushed on without him.

"Father always told me that the company will never be my responsibility. He w-was… a little upset when I told him that I wanted to be a doctor, and only when I agreed to join the school orchestra did he let the issue go. I think he wants me to fall in love with m-music, or really anything that's far from medicine. Once, I told him how much I enjoyed sweets, and by the next week he had found a baking teacher for me."

Sighing, Leo hung his head. "He doesn't want you to dig too close. To know too much. I can empathize with him. I try— we all try, so hard to keep Elise away from the… family business. So she can do what she wants to do, not what she has to do. But we can't. She's more than sharp enough to understand what goes on behind her back, only she pretends otherwise to make us worry less."

He huffed in frustration.

"I hate this. My greatest desire is to be free from this life… But I am obligated to protect my siblings, even if it means wading deeper into this immoral cesspool. Maybe one day I'll be so entrenched in it all that I won't be able to get out."

Sounding genuinely curious, she prodded him with another question. "What would you pr-prefer to be doing instead?"

"I want to be a scholar. History, or perhaps sciences. Botany, maybe? Something innocuous, that I still find interesting."

"Botany? I-Isn't that about plants? It's what Father studied in university."

"Your father? I thought he was a chemist."

"He was actually a b-botanist when he founded the company, not a chemist. M-most of his first medicines were based on plants that my grandparents taught him about. They were herbalists."

Leo couldn't stifle his snort at the mention of herbalism. Sakura looked at him with a puzzled expression. "I-Is there something wrong?".

He shook his head sheepishly. "My apologies. Please, continue."

"Before he moved out of their house, they gave him a graft of a special cherry tree that was growing in their yard for years and years, which he planted outside of his first home. When we moved, it moved with us. 'This is the source of my wealth,' he said to us. He loved it so much that he named his second d-daughter after the cherry blossoms it produced in the spring. M-me."

"Sakura means… cherry blossoms, then?"

"Yes. It's a common name in my culture, but he found it f-fitting, I guess."

An idea was itching at the back of Leo's skull. "What made the tree so special?"

"It's a hybrid that my grandparents bred, many years ago, supposedly with special pr-properties. One of a kind, until my Father planted his own sapling, and made grafts from that, too."

Something sparked in his mind. "Could it be possible that…" he began slowly. His idea was beyond ridiculous, but he still chose to air it out. "That the source of Shirasagi's miracle drug is from that cherry tree? Some abnormal, unusual compound, in the leaves, or the fruits, or the seeds? Something so simple, but hidden in plain sight? It is just a theory, but perhaps with this information I could try to reverse engineer the drug..."

"Is that e-even possible?"

"It would be difficult," he murmured distractedly, his mind wandering away from the conversation. He wasn't going to delude himself into believing that he could do it by himself. "But if I find the right people to help, and maybe get my hands on a graft of that tree..."

A two-tone melody pinged softly from his pocket, cutting Leo's words short. He freed his cell phone and unlocked its screen, revealing a text message from his brother.

 _Bring her to the agreed upon point. We settled on 60 units._

"Only sixty?"

Sakura, to her credit, deciphered his vague statement of dismay immediately. "H-how much time will that give you, Leo?"

"Four months, perhaps? Four and a half? But that's not any of your concern. If my luck holds, I won't need that long. Gather your things. I will bring you to the exchange point, and you'll be finished with this craziness. I'll be finished with it."

"No, I'm st-staying here."

He stared at her, baffled. "Excuse me?"

"Leo, you can negotiate for more of the medication by continuing to keep me here. So you have more time to do your research."

"Are you even listening to what you're saying?" Even considering what she had proposed was enraging. "There is no way that your family would ever—"

"Yes, they would!" she interrupted, just as vehemently. "If you don't g-give them a choice, they'll agree to anything. You know that! Leo, p-please, let me help you help your family!"

"I can't accept that. Sakura… It's not that I don't appreciate what you're offering, but it won't change the fact that my Father's idea was never going to work in the long-term. I need to find another way, and the ideas you've given me are more help than I deserve."

Her eyes, a dark maroon, met his brown ones. "This will give you more time to r-reverse engineer the drug. I promise, I'm serious about this."

"I want you to go home, Sakura," Leo said firmly. "To be done with this mess."

"And if you can't find the solution? What will you do?"

"Then… perhaps we will see each other again."

* * *

"Someone is here to see me?"

It was three months since Sakura's ordeal. She had returned to school, with the excuse of an abnormally high fever to explain her absence. It had taken a great deal of pleading to convince her father to not pull her out of classes in the middle of the year. No longer was she allowed to walk home, and instead one of her siblings, often Hinoka, was tasked with ferrying her and Takumi to and from their high school. While Sakura couldn't be certain, she also had suspicions about two new students, claiming to be cousins, who had shown up one day, coincidentally having transferred into all of her courses.

Hinoka gently pushed her towards the front door. "Yeah. Is she one of your friends?"

"Maybe? I wasn't expecting anyone today…"

"Well, go take a look. Just tell me if you're going anywhere, okay?"

A blonde girl, about Sakura's age, was waiting on the front porch, crouching to observe the flowerbeds beyond the railing. She jumped up as the door opened.

"Hiya! Are you Sakura Shirasagi? I think this belongs to you!"

The girl held up a pink messenger bag. The one Sakura had lost months before. She inhaled sharply when she recognized it. "Wh-where did you find that? I thought that it was gone forever."

"Yup! I found it under some bushes, saw your name written on the tag, and asked around until I found your house. Detective Elise is triumphant again!"

The name was vaguely familiar to Sakura, as thought it was said in the passing to her few times before, but she ignored the fledgling thought. "Th-thank you for helping me. I-Is there a way that I can repay you?"

Elise giggled, and waved her hand at the offer. "Nah, it was no problem! I'm just glad that I could help you out. I do have to get home now though, so until we meet again, Sakura!"

Skipping down the steps, Elise wandered down the sidewalk, humming cheerily to herself. Sakura inspected the bag as she reentered the house. It still held all of her original binders and sheet music, which had to be replaced when she returned to school. Tucked into a small pocket was a piece of notebook paper that she didn't recognize. Anything that she had to keep track of was written into her agenda, or her phone's calendar, so the random scrap seemed out of place. Curious, she plucked it from pouch and unfolded it.

The message was neatly lettered in black pen, unsigned, and without any other marks that she could use to identify its writer.

 _Thank you for your help._

But she knew exactly who had written it.

* * *

 **Fin.**

 **Only four chapters with an incredibly stupid ending, but it was all planned from the beginning. I promise.**

 **What's that? This story makes no sense? I agree.**


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